Gregory Stephanopoulos
Gregory Stephanopoulos was born in Kalamata, Greece, in 1950. Since 2006, he is the holder of the W. H. Dow Professorship of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He attended High School in Kalamata (Paralia HS), a city in the south of the Peloponnese, and Athens (6th HS of Athens). In the last year of high school he won First Prize of the Greek Mathematical Society. In 1968, he was admitted to the School of Chemical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA or Polytechnion) after successful testing at the Panhellenic University Entrance Examination. He graduated from NTUA in 1973 with the Diploma of Chemical Engineering. Throughout his undergraduate studies he maintained a scholarship from the State Scholarship Foundation (IKY) and was recognized, upon graduation, with the “CHRISOVERGION” Award from NTUA for achieving the highest overall GPA in the ChE graduating class and a Prize from the Technical Chamber of Greece for achieving the 2nd highest GPA in the University.
After graduation from NTUA he continued his studies in the United States. In 1975 he obtained his M.S. from the University of Florida and, three years later, his Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota. Professors Arnold Fredrickson and Rutherford Aris were his doctoral mentors. His professional career started in 1978 as Assistant Professor at Caltech where he was promoted in 1984 to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. In 1985, Gregory Stephanopoulos moved to MIT as Professor of Chemical Engineering. He was Bayer Professor between 2000 and 2006, when he was appointed to the W. H. Dow Professorship of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. From 1990 to 1997 he served as Associate Director of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (BPEC) at MIT. Since 1997, he has served as Lecturer on Surgery and Bioengineering for Harvard University at the Massachusetts General Hospital, while he spent the academic year 2006-2007 as Visiting Professor at the ETH Zurich.
The professional career of Professor Stephanopoulos is underscored by his prolific scientific production: he is the co-author of a book and the editor of five other titles, while he has written or co-authored more than 430 papers and is co-inventor of more than 50 patents. During his tenure, he has trained and supervised more than 150 Graduate and Post-Doctoral students; he presently serves on the Editorial Boards of 12 scientific journals (see CV for full list) and currently serves as Editor-in Chief of Metabolic Engineering (since 2003) and co-Editor–in-Chief of Current Opinion in Biotechnology (since 2010). Throughout his career he has served on the Advisory Boards of numerous Panels and Scientific Advisory Boards of government, academic and industrial organizations. Presently he serves on the Advisory Board of the Swiss NSF for National Centers for Competence in Research (NCCR), the Delft Process Technology Institute (DPTI), the University of Illinois Institute for Genomic Biology, the Board of Directors of the International Chemical Reaction Engineering (ISCRE), and the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB).
The importance of his outstanding research was highlighted in 30 named Lectureships (see below). During the years, Professor Stephanopoulos received many honors (see full list below). Among others, in 2010 he received the George Washington Carver Award for Innovation in Industrial Biotechnology and the ACS E. V. Murphree Award. From AIChE he received the R.H. Wilhelm Award (2001), the Founders award (2007) and the William Walker Award (2014). In 2011 he received the Eni Prize in Renewable and non-Conventional Energy, in 2013 the John Fritz Medal from the American Association of Engineering Societies, in 2016 the Eric and Sheila Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels and in 2017 the Novozymes Award for Excellence in Biochemical and Chemical Engineering. Professor Stephanopoulos was elected in 2003 to the US National Academy of Engineering and in 2011 as Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens. He has Honorary degrees from the Danish Technical University and NTUA. In 2016 he served as President of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.